CDBS HOME | Gloria: A Couple of Tips for Using the iPad: Keyguards and Locking the iPad Cover

Gloria: A Couple of Tips for Using the iPad: Keyguards and Locking the iPad Cover

02/11/2013 12:46

Last Saturday Cristi Saylor and I presented at the Lowenfeld-Ackeson Symposium on the use of the iPad and apps with young children with sensory impairments and additional disabilities. As on many other occasions when we have presented on this topic many people in the audience shared their tips as well. Here are a couple that you may find useful:

1. The use of keyguards to prevent the child touching certain areas of the iPad (e.g., the home button) or the screen by covering them with these guards made of transparent plastic. They only leave open the places on the screen where the child needs to touch in order to get the right result.

I have never seen or used these keyguards because I'm using the iPad mainly with children who are just beginning to use it and I don't want to place any "limits". Nevertheless, I can see the value of these keyguards for children who need this support to refine their use of the iPad.

The keyguards are sold at http://beyondadaptive.com. They offer standard keyguards for specific apps, but they can also custom-make them.

2. One issue that happens quite often when you play with young children using the iPad is that the screen might shift to other apps or to the page where the apps are, which is disruptive. The reason is that these children tap everywhere on the screen, and their tapping and touching seems to be quite random. One way of controlling this issue is to turn ON the "iPad Cover Lock/Unlock.” Here are the steps:

A. Go to the iPad settings;
B. Then to "General"
C. Then to "iPad Cover Lock/Unlock” and turn it ON.